We were woken at dawn by a commotion outside. The kind that suggested important people had arrived and were making sure everyone knew it.
After dressing in the clean clothes Mount Hua had provided—functional training garments in the sect's traditional white with subtle blue accents—we made our way to the main hall. The mood had shifted overnight, the air now charged with a different kind of tension.
Mo stood at the center of the chamber, his expression carefully neutral as he faced a semi-circle of stern-faced men and women in various styles of formal attire. Even without introductions, it was clear these were the family heads and sect leaders who had survived the initial onslaught.
I recognized a few—the stern patriarch of the Namgung family, his usually immaculate robes now torn and stained; the matriarch of the Gu family, her right arm in a sling; three elders from the Southern Edge Sect, their faces grim behind their traditional face paint.
